The Polite Universe

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“Goodbye, Hannibal.”

Will’s words, with their tone of finality undeniable, snapped like a tether cut in two. Hannibal felt himself adrift. He wouldn’t grovel. He wouldn’t throw himself at Will’s feet. The time for that was past, if ever there had been a time.

So instead he picked up his notebook with its intricate and detailed calculations and stepped outside into the snowy bleakness of the Wolf Trap winter.

As he made his way into the woods, he flipped through the notebook one last time, and a numerical value suddenly made itself clear to him.

He had two paths before him, laid out by his own careful figuring.

With one last look back at Will’s little house, Hannibal stepped onto the path he’d never planned on taking.

***

Franklyn Froideveaux was weeping about his neuroses again. Hannibal offered him a tissue, which he accepted with thanks.

Hannibal bristled, knowing that Franklyn would inevitably deposit the soggy and used tissue onto the nearest flat surface, and knowing that he would have to sweep it into the trash bin later and wipe down his office with disinfectant.

But Franklyn, having sniffled and snorted into the tissue, merely tucked it into his jacket’s breast pocket.

“I hate being this neurotic,” he said.

Hannibal was so stunned, he didn’t know what to say.

***

The moment Hannibal met Will Graham, he knew instantly just how he could help him.

Will, with his beautiful but overwhelming empathy, merely needed something to better help him see the Minnesota Shrike’s handiwork for what it really was. He needed a contrast of pure art and suffering that would serve as shadow to light. Otherwise, he wouldn’t see the light at all.

Hannibal boarded the train, humming with contentment, knowing it wouldn’t be long before some rude person made herself known to him. He would pluck her from obscurity and craft her into something exquisite.

She was dark-haired and ruddy-cheeked, and perfect for Hannibal’s planned palette…but she was terribly polite.

“Cassie!” someone further down the train called out. “I saved you a seat!”

The young woman waved to her traveling companion and glanced back at Hannibal again, her eyes full of sincere regret.

“Sorry, again,” she said.

“Think nothing of it,” he replied.

***

The Minnesota Shrike case went unsolved for weeks. The killer, an otherwise unremarkable man named Garret Jacob Hobbs, was only caught because he finally killed his own daughter and then himself.

Everyone, including Will Graham, moved on to other cases. There was someone new that Jack Crawford was convinced was the Chesapeake Ripper, but of course he was chasing phantoms.

Hannibal, for his part, tried to occupy himself with his favorite pasttimes. Music, drawing, cooking. The cooking wasn’t quite as satisfactory as it had once been, however, as he hadn’t found any appropriate meat in a ridiculously long time. He’d actually resorted to purchasing take-out from a decent Italian restaurant a few times.

One night, during an intermission between arias from his favorite soprano, he was confronted by an old acquaintance.

“It’s been too long since you’ve properly cooked for us, Hannibal,” said Mrs. Komeda.

Most of the photographs had vanished. There remained only a few pictures of the current case to which Crawford had assigned Will.

“You’ve never heard of the Chesapeake Ripper?” Hannibal asked, feeling as if an icy hand had gripped his insides and twisted them into a knot.

“No, but it sounds dreadful,” Will said. He touched Hannibal’s hand again, this time more boldly. “Why don’t you tell me about it—or him—over dinner?”

***

They ended up skipping dinner and going straight to Will’s house, where they promptly tumbled onto the bed in a tangle of arms and legs and clothes that got infuriatingly in the way of skin touching skin.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since we met,” Will said between kisses.

“I thought you hated me when we met,” Hannibal said.

Will laughed against Hannibal’s throat. “Why on earth would you think that?”

Hannibal’s head swam in a jumble of memories that didn’t seem like his own. There was supposed to be a daughter, a surrogate daughter…someone that he and Will had rescued together. They were supposed to catch Garret Jacob Hobbs…together. They were supposed to be out together right now, hunting down a murderer…a murderer called the Chesapeake…the Chesapeake…somebody.

Face etched with worry, Will reached for him, but Hannibal was already pulling his coat back on and trudging outside into the snow. His feet carried him out behind the house, to a gnarled and hollowed-out tree.

Will chased after him. “Hannibal! Where are you going?”

“I put this here before we met,” Hannibal said, reaching into the tree. He pulled out a notebook that had been well-wrapped in a handkerchief. “I think I knew why at the time I did it, because I was still myself, but it’s fading now.”

Will took the notebook from him and flipped through the water-stained pages. “This looks…complicated.”